


Mandor's darkest fears

by Perelynn



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Crossover, Why is Mandor's hair white?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25387990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perelynn/pseuds/Perelynn
Summary: Mandor Sawall is watching "She-Ra and the Princesses of Power". One of the characters, Princess Entrapta, reminds him of someone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Mandor's darkest fears

One of Prince Mandor’s favorite pastimes is to dive into chaos. To check out something he would never deem interesting based on his own inclinations. He knows his tastes, and he deliberately ventures out of them.

He had Mandorways woven out of the most eclectic Shadows imaginable. One of the countless rooms, passages, nooks and hideouts contain a device that can be easily mistaken for a divination pool. The waters are dark, the walls of the well are lush with vegetation, the trickling of the incoming stream whispers of secrets. 

It is not a divination pool.

After little Merlin tinkered with the well, it became all but useless for divination purposes. Instead, it offers Mandor the ability to watch - how do they call it in the Shadows? - “the moving pictures”. They always start with the red letters forming the name “Netflix”. Mandor doesn’t know who that Netflix is, but they should be at least a Duke or a Duchess to own a realm that diverse.

This cycle, Mandor decides to watch a heroic tale “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power”. (Anything with the word “power” has an instant appeal to him.) It is very obviously a children’s tale, and at first Mandor is watching it only to expand his horizons. Children's tales can be surprisingly refreshing. They offer simple solutions to unusually difficult problems.

As the series progresses, though, Mandor feels dread churning in his stomach. Something on the screen bothers him, bothers so much he cannot think straight. By the time he is on Season 3, his hair stands on end.

One of the characters, Princess Entrapta, reminds him of someone. This manner to dive into dangerous experiments headlong, this disregard for safety, this total inability to register the reaction of the surrounding people… oh yes. Little Merlin displays each and every one of these traits. 

Now, Mandor got a glimpse of what it could evolve into, if the boy is left to his own devices. An Entrapta-like inventor, proficient in both magic and technology, specializing in blending them, mixing them, enhancing one with the other, spells disaster of unimaginable proportions in the Courts of Chaos.

Mandor is not a scientist, but he heard enough of the scientific method, the arcane practice of incessant and interminable experimentation steeped in deep disdain for common sense and indeed safety itself. In Shadows, scientific discoveries are slow to unfurl. They require years of tedious work. But what are years to those who are virtually immortal?

Mandor waves his hand to stop the series. The image on the water dissipates. Instead, the black surface shows Mandor’s own reflection. His hair, black and sleek before, is now snowy-white and stands around his face like a lion’s mane. His hands are trembling. The pool has inadvertently lapsed into its divination function. If his little brother is allowed to tinker away, this is what the future holds for them all. 

Scientists in Shadows are often mercifully confined to their labs. Alas, the child of Chaos doesn’t naturally have such limits. Princess Entrapta in the series completely ignored all boundaries, getting in someone else’s sanctum just because there is interesting stuff there. Merlin will be worse. Mandor can easily imagine the boy to start seeing all the Shadows as his lab, disregarding boundaries, kings and alliances. Destroying centuries of diplomacy all because he had a fleeting idea. It would plunge all of reality into war.

Dworkin Barimen was called a traitor, but the old man’s treachery would be a blip compared to the havoc Merlin would wreak. If the boy ever gets it into his head - and Mandor should account for the case when he does - to repeat Dworkin’s blasphemous deed, Merlin’s creation would be exponentially more dangerous than the Pattern. For all the ability of Logrus to be a shifting labyrinth of change, Merlin would take it apart and rearrange it like a Shadow architect weaving Shadows into a complicated patchwork of their choice. Merlin’s artifact of power will be to Logrus what Mandorways are to a simple house. 

The thoughts are flying through Mandor’s mind, swift like scared swallows.

“The boy needs to be schooled, disciplined, taught to be afraid. Afraid of madness. We, the Chaos Lords, stand on the very verge of chaos, which is the greatest madness of them all. Our rules are few, but they are precious. The rules prevent us from plunging into the madness to our doom. You can bend and weave and craft the rules, but you break them at your peril.” 

From now on, Mandor’s task would be to prevent the boy from developing into someone like Princess Entrapta, playful and careless and unconcerned where their “experiments” can lead them.

Otherwise, the Chaos Lords will face the end of their world.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you liked this work. Comments warm my heart and fuel my imagination.


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